Friday, November 18, 2005

Bought a new mic, new headphones, iMac G5 - all set up to produce 'killer shows', yet this show will be the last one before I can get settled in our house.

This is show#10 and the last one as far as my introductory lessons go. After almost 7,000 visitors to my site and close to 3,000 subscribers (at one point) I decided to take a sabbatical to re-evaluate the show and make some changes. Renovating of the house damaged by hurricane Katrina is another reason for the break.

I would like to thank all my loyal long-time listeners as well as new ones for downloading the show. I really enjoyed getting the lessons ready as well as doing the production itself. I wouldn't be able to do it without you inspiring me.

There will be no lesson today. If you sent me a comment or a question - don't worry. I will be answering all the questions via e-mail personally in the days to come. Stay subscribed to 'A Spoonful of Russian' - that way you'll be informed of all the changes.

I did include a song in this last show.

"Сердце" ('Heart')
also known as "Как много девушек хороших" ('There are so many nice girls")

Friday, November 11, 2005

The mic I am used to is a 'gonner'. Found out today as I was getting ready to record the audio. Not only that. I also managed to sit on my Sony headphones I use for podcast production. That's quite embarassing, although the room was totally dark and the headphones were right on the chair. Anyway, Lesson#10 is pushed to the next Saturday. Hopefully, I'll be able to aquire new mic and earphones by then.....Stay tuned.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

How do you feel about food? Я люблю поесть! (I love to eat!) most people will say.

Whether you love it or hate it, we deal with food and talk about food every single day. That reminds me, I have to throw together PLOV (rice-based national dish of Uzbekistan) for tonight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plov) ....be right back.

Below is the dialog from today's lesson. Let's try to make an order at one of the Russian restaurants. It's lunch time and you are a client, клиент (speaking in masculine gender in this dialog) at one of the nicer Russian resaturants.

By now I am sure you will be able to greet your server (официант) properly in Russian. You would say 'Добрый день', 'Здравствуйте', but never 'Привет' or 'Здорово'....Leave the latter for your friends and family.

Your официант would probably ask you if you'd want a starter.

Официант: Что вы хотите на закуску?
Server: What would you like for a starter?

Клиент: Ну для спиртного еще рановато, да и компания нужна. Принесите мне просто кофейку.Client: It's a bit too early for alchohol, and one has to have company for that. Why don't you just bring me coffee.

After your meal, if you are inclined to do so, you can leave a tip (чаевые), which is between 18-20% of your bill. Leaving a tip is still only customary at upscale restaurants in Russia as my sources tell me.
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Today, I'm gonna play a song from a Russian comedy called "Кавказская Пленница" ("The Prisoner of Caucasus"). The song is titled"A Song about Bears". It's a funny song about polar bears who spin the axis of the Earth so that the life would go on. :) And how do they do that? They rub their backs against the axis!

Friday, November 04, 2005

Can you see that little red icon that looks like a bowl full of red caviar with the spoon sticking out? That's our podcast. We made it to the front page of iTunes podcast directory. On the top '100' list we are #40 or so....The number of listeners of this show more than doubled. Last week we had 600+ subscribers, now there are over 1200!

Gotta get back to putting the finishing touches on my next Lesson#9. Stay tuned.....

Friday, October 14, 2005

Let's say you want to fly out of JFK to Scheremetyevo airport in Moscow, then take the train to Vladivostok, stopping to drive through the countryside both by car and by horseback. Or maybe you enjoy boat cruises and would love to go down the Volga river! In trying to put all of this into words, you realize that you need to use some new expressions. Here are some examples:

Friday, October 07, 2005

Сегодня суббота, 8-ое октября. The show is still recorded at my temp 'studio' away from my home in New Orleans.

In this podcast you will learn how to say the days of the week in Russian, as well as count from 1-10. You will also find out why you shouldn't get stressed over stress in Russian words. We will take a look at some simple sentence structures and word order within sentences as well....This might be the largest 'Spoonful of Russian' ever, but it's all good!

Correction: In the beginning of the podcast I got the date wrong. The show was being recorded on Friday, Oct, 7th. You will hear me say: "Today is Saturday, 7th of October." Oops!

Just to add to our past lesson - there are noun, adjective and verb cognates in Russian, and they can help you speak smoothly and easily, making you sound very natural. But don't let false cognates trick you into saying something you don't intend!

I'd like to answer a question of one of my listeners. He was asking about the role of the 'hard sign' and the 'soft sign' in the Russian alphabet. The soft sign 'мягкий знак' has no sound of its own. Rather it tells you that the consonant before it is soft. (учитель).....The hard sign 'твердый знак' has no sound of its own as well. It indicates that the preceeding consonant is hard. You make a slight break in the word, immediately after the consonant it follows. (объем - volume - объем).

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- Что это? Это кофе?- Нет, это не кофе. Это чай.

- What is this? Is this coffee?- No, it's not coffee. It's tea.

and now a slightly different dialogue:

- Кто это? Это учитель?- Нет, это не учитель. Это студент.

- Who is this? Is this a teacher?- No, It is not a teacher. It is a student.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Many subscribers to my podcast reported errors while downloading different episodes of "A Spoonful of Russian" podcast. iTunes, iPodder (and other feed aggregators) either didn't show some files, or had one of the dialogs (or Russian songs) linked as my episode's link.

I am not sure whose problem it was: Blogger or Feedburner. Once I removed all the extra mp3 and zip files iTunes picked the right mp3 file to show as an episode!

Good, but I don't want to give up on the idea of providing you with extra material, like Russian songs, flash cards, etc. I am looking into an alternative at the moment.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Sounds like cognates are the single greatest friend to folks learning Russian. However, as with most good things there are pitfalls. And these pitfalls are called 'false cognates'. A 'false cognate' is a word that shares a similar pronunciation between two languages, but means one thing in one language and something else in the other. You'd sound pretty silly if a Russian asked you what you were doing ('Что вы делаете?') and you'd answer 'Я читаю магазин' (which means 'I am reading a store')....

Friday, September 23, 2005

You'll be surprised how many words you would be able to recognize without studying any Russian. The words I am talking about are cognates - words borrowed from a foreign language that share a common pronunciation and meaning.The Russian version of an English word may look intimidating to you at first, but as you become familiar with the Russian characters you'll learn to recognize a cognate when you see it.